The Real World Order

...capacity to devolve powers of governance to more responsive local levels...

...Whatever the terms of interaction between the two spheres, however, it is clear that the developing world will not pose a threat to the democratic one...

...In the short term, conditions in the zones of turmoil will likely get worse, as characterized most notably by aggravated instability in the former Soviet Union...

...Within the democratic sphere, war is no longer a serious possibility, nor—for the first time in modern history—will state-to-state relationships be determined by the balance of military power...

...But this collective decision-making should not extend beyond the democracies...

...Peace is divisible...

...Europe and Japan should be encouraged to join us as superpowers (the latter at least through such status symbols as a seat on the Security Council) so that they can participate as true equals in the process, enhancing the international authority of such interventions as are pursued...

...The analogy is a useful one, but adolescents do not always grow up to be like their parents, or even to be functioning members of society...

...On the one hand, the U.S...

...They posit that international affairs in the post–Cold War world will be driven by a new bipolarity—between the zones of peace and democracy on the one hand, and the zones of turmoil and development on the other...

...Indeed, withthe end of Communism, democracy has attained "exclusive legitimacy" among world systems...

...The fact is that national power (including foreign economic aid, which Singer and Wildaysky would like to see increased) will much more likely be garnered and projected in the context of competition...

...Economic development will bring with it political development at the same time as the zones of democracy will provide a perfected model of sustained peace to which to aspire...

...But in the long term, this book predicts, countries in these zones will inevitably move towards democracy...

...they are zones not just of turmoil but also of development...

...Altruism won't count for much at the budget table, especially if, as Singer and Wildaysky hold, intervention will often do more harm than good...

...The Real World Order calls for maintaining a military force that "can quickly deliver military power anywhere in the world with intimidating and overwhelming effectiveness...

...where he confronted only changed relationships among states, today's observers must consider the prospect of a world in which the whole dynamic of global relationships may have changed...

...The American Spectator November 1993 83...

...In the short term, the U.S...

...On the other, we must underTHE REAL WORLD ORDER: ZONES OF PEACE /ZONES OF TURMOIL Max Singer and Aaron Wildaysky Chatham House/ 212 pages /$25 reviewed by PETER J. SPIRO 82 The American Spectator November 1993 stand that intervention often proves a long-term liability for all involved, by interrupting or distorting the necessary trials of political development...

...and other "great democracies" should be prepared, for altruistic reasons if no other, to intervene "to protect democracy, preserve peace, defeat aggression, and prevent or stop governments from killing large numbers of their citizens...

...It is not now apparent, for example, that the Islamic world will inevitably arrive at democratic governance even within the course of a century...

...Singer and Wildaysky maintain that the world will thus witness an inexorable, and ultimately total, extension of the zones of democracy to engulf the zones of turmoil...

...Kennan's task was a cakewalk compared to that of his successors...

...Subnational ethnic groups such as the Quebecois, Scots, and Catalans will be afforded more self-government, even independence...

...Combined with the absence of any such threat from within the democratic community (and no present democracy, Japan included, is likely to revert to nondemocracy), this conclusion has profound policy consequences...

...Democracy is, after all, indigenous to Western civilization only...

...in the long run, if the other great democracies are not going to be responsible actors in relation to the zones of turmoil, the zones of turmoil will have to get along without democratic intervention...

...S o much for procedure...

...As for direct intervention, the democracies should act only in concert and only to alleviate particular horrors of war and oppression...

...Singer and Wildaysky repeatedly describe countries in the zones of turmoil as moving through a necessary, difficult, and unpredictable "national adolescence" on the way to full democratic maturity...

...With this security will come the Peter J. Spiro is a resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow...

...before I am German, English, or American"—cut across national loyalties and give rise to alternative institutional allegiances, further diminishing the possibility of armed conflict...

...Perhaps we shouldn't place all our bets just yet on effortless victory for the democrats...

...in particular, intervention should not be held hostage to the "vote-trading" process of the United Nations...

...Costa Rica, Israel, Botswana, South Korea, and other countries may be democratic, but are not part of a "zone...

...The pace and success of development in the zones of turmoil will be "overwhelmingly determined by local conditions," about which the democracies will have little control, or indeed interest...

...The zones of democracy now comprise Western Europe, the United States and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Japan, or about 15 percent of the world's total population...

...0 n the other side of the new world divide, in the Bosnias, the Somalias, and Chinas of the world, it will be pretty much business as usual, "the same old stuff of war, famine, and mutual carnage...

...Power will continue to be either centralized in the hands of the nonaccountable or fractured into anarchy...

...For all the emphasis on quality over quantity, in this book and elsewhere, military might ultimately depends on how much money backs it up, as perceived domestic threats will naturally take an even bigger share of public resources if no such threats are perceived from abroad...

...The aim is for something in the nature of George Kennan's pathbreaking "X" article at the onset of the last seismic shift in world affairs...

...should continue to exert strong leadership among its counterpart nations...

...To the extent we can help, bilateral policymaking and foreign assistance should be aimed at persuading marginal or non-democracies to reduce legal and economic obstacles to growth created by their own governments...

...Max Singer and the late Aaron Wildaysky have taken a shot at the problem in The Real World Order...

...As for principles, the authors offer only that they will gradually develop through practice...

...In the meantime—the authors suppose the process might take a century or two—there is the matter of how the democracies should deal with the non-democracies, especially where they stumble along the road of progress...

...Unlike during the Cold War, the peace these countries now enjoy is a real peace, "not only the absence of war but also freedom from fear of war...

...But its analysis may more likely be used to justify greatly reduced military spending...

...Paradoxically, a greater cohesion will develop among the democracies, as other identities—"I am an environmentalist, a manufacturer, a city-dweller, etc...

...National governments within the zones of democracy will no longer enjoy anything approaching a monopoly over foreign-policymaking, challenged not by one (half-) world government from above, but rather by a multitude of uncoordinated transnational ties and institutions from below...

...As Samuel P. Huntington, another candidate Kennan, notes: "The very notion that there could be a 'universal civilization' is a Western idea, directly at odds with the particularism [of other cultures...